Originally Posted by
Frank717
Cujo, remember we go way back to Beagle.
but… you did harp on me about our TA with K4. I was strongly against it, citing “when Covid is over, things will change. We deserve more”. You thought it was good enough and Connie couldn’t offer more. Here we are, K4 can’t get and hold pilots and we are almost as bad as ATI. I’m retired now, but it seems there isn’t a single yes voter to be found… typical.
My brother is counting down his year at ATI and has nothing good to say about them. The quality of new hires, it seems most of which don’t even have a Frozen ATP, are poor. The other issues there is the standz dept has apparently been through multi leaders in just a few months. And finally, apparently a semi-forced upgraded with the company pushing to get a blanket 1000hr P121 waiver in place.
just bad, bad, bad.
Rumor; some newbies are so poor at landing, captains either take every landing or encourage autolandings.
The fact that they can't get enough pilots is what will drive the change for a better CBA. Calling them out for it here publicly just pushes the eventual deal they'll have to make to come sooner. The K4 contract was short term and wouldn't fix their problem by the time it became amendable, neither was ATI's in 2018. Both however were good deals rather than sit for 4-6 years fighting to be where both are now, but under the old rates. Justas the regional managements came to the unions outside of traditional amendment periods to fix the contracts, the ACMI's will too. In the meantime, the time value of money rule of thumb is to take what you can, when you can, rather than sit and say no, not good enough for 4-6 years. If it isn't going to fix their problem, then they'll be back, and you're stupid to not take it.
The ACMI are banking on a recession coming soon to solve their contract problems by having pilots happy to be employed while scheduled pax carriers are furloughing again. If they're right, then taking what you can now is better than getting nothing once the recession hits. If they are wrong, then the pilot shortage will drive them to fix the CBA's just like the regionals did.
Either way, in this market. We win. Good to hear from ya, enjoy the retirement !!